Thirty-eight states have feticide laws passed with the promise that they would protect pregnant women and their "unborn children" from harm. Yet there is hard evidence that these laws actually hurt them.

Far more than abortion is at stake: There are measures that establish legal principles that will be and, indeed, already have been used to justify arrests of and forced medical interventions on pregnant women.

The Liberty Counsel has established that the "pro-life" position is "pro-punishment," not just for doctors who perform abortions, but also for pregnant women who have no intention of ending their pregnancies and go to term.

"Personhood" for zygotes cruelly subverts the very idea of a culture of life and potentially criminalizes every pregnant woman. Are you really cool with that? Even if you personally would not chose an abortion?

While people in Mississippi were considering Proposition 26 and deciding whether fertilized eggs and embryos would be treated as entirely separate legal persons, a prosecutor and courts were addressing the same question behind the scenes, where voters have no role or voice.